TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #160: Brian Harrington

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

Join Marty as he sits down with fellow Bitcoiner Brian Harrington to discuss: - Civil Liberties and the shutdown - Three sides of your balance sheet - Should we stop paying taxes? - Using your bitcoin in different ways - Enacting change via local government - Jesus - much more Follow Brian on Twitter Shoutout to this week's sponsors. Cash App. Start #stackingsats today. Use the promo code: "stackingsats" to receive $10 and contribute $10 to OWLS Lacrosse when you download the app.

What's up freaks, it's your boy Marty here to introduce this episode of Tales from the Crypt. I sat down with Brian Harrington, great Bitcoiner, been following him for quite some time, was very happy to get him on the horn. He is doing some interesting things out in California. He got elected to his local government and he's working to try to convince them that they should be integrating Bitcoin into their locality as much as possible. We had a very interesting, wide-ranging conversation. if we get into the difference between changing things via your local government as opposed to the federal government, which is very fascinating. We may be able to do more at the local level and have more impact at the local level,

which is something we love to talk about here on Tales from the Crypt than we could ever hope to achieve at the federal level. So I think you guys are really going to like this episode. I certainly did. This episode was brought to you by our good friends at the Cash App. You freaks already know all about them. They're helping us stack sats. they're helping to send sets receive sets and sets is the standard now if you want to sell

sets you can do that too not recommended on this podcast but if you want to the option is there you can buy and sell you can stack and unstack on the cash app on top of that they're allowing you to invest in stocks listen listen freaks hey you your headphones in maybe in your car maybe in your backyard maybe drinking a beer i don't know what you're doing but i know you can hear me okay i don't i know that not all of you want to buy stonks okay but the option is there if you want to stack stonks via the cash app via cash app investing specifically you can do that you can stack slivers of stonks you do not have to buy a whole stonk it's way too expensive for you if you want to buy a stonk if you don't have to if you don't want to you don't have to

but if you want to and it's a little too expensive you can buy as little as one dollar via cash app investing because it's connected directly to your bank account there's no four to five day waiting periods and start investing today cash app may even be your bank account they're offering account number and rounding numbers now so you can get your checks directly deposited into the app start stacking faster take out that that whole move money to the cash app process just get it sent straight there from your paycheck cash app investing is subsidiary square member sipc as always remember to use the code stacking sats if you haven't downloaded the app yet If you download the app, use the code stacking sats, that's one word, S-E-A-C-K-I-N-G-S-A-T-S,

you're going to get $10, and $10 is going to go to our good friends at Al's Lacrosse. Stacking sats. Enjoy this episode. you've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free if you talk about a fed just gone nuts all all the central banks going nuts so it's all acting like safe haven i believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency bitcoin wins in the world of fiat currencies bitcoin is the victor i mean that's part of the bull case for bitcoin if you're not paying attention you probably should be

what is up freaks welcome back to tales from the crypt it's your boy marty bent here on a beautiful wednesday evening for me it's turning into evening very excited to have this conversation we we nailed it down today i'm sorry i uh i uh i'm slow to respond to dm sometimes sitting down with bitcoiner great bitcoiner brian harrington brian welcome to the podcast dude it's like humbling truly humbling to be here talking to you um and the freaks like i really i'm excited to be alive and i'm excited that we're all rising to the occasion like i so i'm excited to just openly conspire with all of you and usher in continue ushering in the revolution that's what i feel like we're doing so i'm thankful to be here thankful to have you here

and that's why uh i wanted to bring you on you're very uh very vocal about wanting to to free the world and free people's minds and get them out from under the the thumb of the state particularly after all this lockdown stuff where obviously it's a hot topic very controversial to some but i think in my mind at least there's no no doubt that the state is taking advantage of this crisis to inhibit civil liberties and some people are just rolling over and taking it yeah no exactly that like it is kind of controversial like i threw out i threw out that protest video on our bitcoin just to you know try to make some new friends see what was going to happen and everyone was mad at me for like being

outside on our bitcoin i was like i thought we were libertarians here like i don't understand like what's happening so i i just want people like i appreciate people's perspective on you know both sides of this thing but no yeah the shutdown has truly kind of like shook me to my core because like i i've always i've been involved in politics i've always loved politics and like there's there's thousands that not exaggerating think across the united states thousands of city council county council state representatives federal representatives that are ignoring private property rights and saying that it's illegal to engage in commerce that's weird like so these these people that i've been like working for and working with are are have nothing to do with what

i'm interested in doing and that's been a weird realization over the last you know 58 days yeah i mean and especially as more data is coming in we know who this virus attacks we have better data around that and who we should be protecting and who is less susceptible to getting a severe case of this virus it doesn't make any sense to quarantine everybody especially as tens of millions of people are becoming unemployed i think i just saw a tweet where Chairman Powell came out and said 40% of people making $40,000 or lower are currently unemployed, which is insane. Yeah, no. And that's, and so that's what sparked for me this whole stuff about taxes is that like, on a real practical level, like, what are we paying for? Like,

what am I paying for? But I, you're taking away rights, you're taking away freedoms. i thought that's what i was paying for like i thought that's what the social contract said was that you as elected people protect life liberty and pursuit of happiness and me as the citizen like pay taxes isn't that what the arrangement is like and so you guys aren't upholding your end of the bargain so like where what am i supposed to do to uphold my bargain um yeah no that's why we're sitting here it's like tax protest definitely a very very touchy controversial subject uh should we not pay our taxes uh i mean this is something i've been thinking about more and it's definitely a taboo subject to even bring up like oh you're not going

to pay your taxes the irs is going to come knocking on your door you're going to get wesley sniped um like uh but fuck it like let's have the conversation they are not upholding their end of the bargain uh we're finding out that some of our tax dollars may have even gone to fund the research around this virus specifically like so we're paying to have them research something that is killing us but does it even make sense anymore are we getting any return on our investment at this point is it an investment or return on our our labor right no and i know it's a touch subject and i know it's like look it's easy to just be a loudmouth libertarian on twitter like and and i'm guilty of that i'm just as guilty of that as you know a lot of us are but that's why i

started to really like think about okay what would this actually look like and that's where kind of this renewed sense of urgency to me of like the bitcoin circular economy and like what do these citadels actually look like what you know there already are arrangements like this in the united states because like look the amish already live under their own set of rules the native americans already live under their own set of rules and so i don't know like there has to be legal ways or like i say i sent you this like too like there was just this ruling at the supreme court called the janice decision that allows public employees to opt out of their unions now so that's been like a long fight over like a long amount of times of people like standing up for

their rights and saying like no i shouldn't have to join this like collective bargaining thing if i don't want to even though you're you know mandating that i do it and i kind of want to do the same thing dude but with like social security like social security is not going to pay us back it's not like we all know that we all know the math on that and but now like we have this like radical open source software tool to create our own economy and literally annex ourselves in place while still being you know patriots of whatever country we live in and and And so that's like, I'm trying to drive this line of like, I'm not just trying to spout off this, like, oh, I'm angry.

You know, you guys aren't treating me fair or whatever. As much as I, you know, feel like that and want to rant like that, I'm literally trying to make like an actual case for, you know, what does this middle of the road, you know, change look like to protest? Wow. Just building, we're building around the regulations. Yeah. And I think Alex Gladstein made a good point yesterday.

We were on a panel or a podcast panel, if you will, at the Value of Bitcoin conference, the virtual conference. And he made a good point about peaceful protests having much greater chances of succeeding as opposed to violent protests. And Bitcoin is the most peaceful protest because you don't even have to leave your fucking house. Yeah. Yeah. No, just every dollar that you swap into Bitcoin is a protest. and every dollar that we keep inside bitcoin inside the circular economy is a protest and so that's like and i guess that's what's cool right is that this i mean the silver lining of this

thing is that it has brought the sense of urgency to me to to not just be one of these one of these guys that you know like there there is this whole debate of just you know hodling versus spending and just like what is this going to look like and and i do think some of us are in trouble of kind of just you know he you know keeping the sats on hardware wallets and just hoping for the moon and and and that is positive it's still a net benefit but like i'm excited for some of us that have been doing that for a while to start taking the next step like like i just bought an android like dude i'm an iphone cash apper dude i'm an i am i'm an iphone cash apper bitcoiner like but i'm trying to learn and get better like i bought an android you know i'm hanging out with like the

samurai guys now in telegram and trying to learn and trying to understand what the whole deal is because i i never had there was no point in me buying bitcoin for cash because i didn't know how to store it because it was it was confusing but now with you know samurai and whirlpool and all this stuff on the phone and they give you control over the utxos that's now more simple for me to actually you know have digital cash and have a dedicated phone that would allow me to participate in a circular economy yeah no i mean i'm uh i bought an android wiped it downloaded graphene till and i'm running dojo whirlpool and i'm very happy and yeah and i mean it's like layers to it right like you can you can ease into it like and i i do sort of hate the um the shaming

of people who use the kyc services i do agree that kyc is evil and that it's not ideal that these exchanges know the at least the first hop from the exchange when you're interacting with them um that is i would know the first hop uh from a merchant if i were to buy things with bitcoin as well unless they're going straight into a coin join which is possible especially with a pay join um but no there's there's levels to it and there's there's uh there is sort of stepping stones for for different types of users there's certainly the people who will go straight to bisque and know how to set that up and run that and find a counterparty to a trade but there's others who's just honestly easier that they already have the cash app and they

just go to the tab and stack some sats that way disclaimer cash apps sponsor the pod everybody knows that already um but uh yeah no it is it is and that's why i like the work you've been doing recently and why i wanted to reach out obviously we want to talk about the tax stuff and tax protesting but obviously you've been pushing hard on on instagram and youtube and you know the crazy big followings there but you're reaching out to your friends and family and just educating like one at a time with these small one to two minute videos about about how to get access and then use bitcoin so why why have you been doing that so because because i've always been in the personal finance like my my parents like I'm thankful that my parents taught me how to budget

like I use the like envelope system like as a kid and you know you put 80 percent in spending 10 percent you know gave it to the church and 10 percent to um savings so my parents taught me how to do that so I've always grown up just watching you know Dave Ramsey and like all these budgeting like videos and there's like honestly the whole like personal finance community like community on Twitter and Instagram and you know YouTube is behind they're behind and so it really was one of those things where it was like okay if they're not going to do it i'm going to do it and so i started talking about just the three sides of my balance sheet and how i use bitcoin you know to protect my savings from inflation um because i see that as a really

like practical application to it that's why i mean that's why yeah and i actually was piss poor personal finance until i found bitcoin and even like longer into my bitcoin journey um it got even better at it like right now i think i'm hitting my stride in terms of personal finance and using bitcoin as a part of that um sort of sweet now like i said like before we hit record i had a long stretch in my 20s where i was unemployed so i felt like i was uh a couple steps behind even like only even a few years ago uh and trying to catch up and it does seem daunting at times or it did at least like holy shit how am i ever going to save for the future um how am i going to stack enough sats um but it is weighing the opportunity costs and

literally trying to spend less and save more yeah well totally dude and that and so that was the thing i was going to say about the whole you know kyc exchange versus on kyc exchange too is that like i'm so we'll take it all the way to the other extreme dude i love block five like i i like that i think that's cool i don't think that's weird to put some of your bitcoin like there like i think there's three sides of the balance sheet you know like have your fed coin or fed dollars to pay your rent and taxes have your bitcoin that you deposit with either you know a company like unchained or a company like blockfi to get fiat liquidity for the loans when price skyrockets and then have the third bucket which is non-kyc true fu money bitcoin on your dedicated android that operates

in a circular economy like i'm gonna take advantage of this whole thing and i'm gonna ride this wave and ride this transition and literally change the financial outlook like for my family for for generations like that's really my plan and and so i think i think it's just like any kind of budgeting i i don't think it's weird to look at your look at your bitcoin in terms of you know some that you leverage for fiat liquidity and some that you keep in a circular economy to you know do avoid taxes and the whole the whole using cash to avoid taxes like that's not that controversial like i'm in i'm in california right now i could walk outside and buy tacos for cash right now and those people don't pay taxes on that you know that there's no we all do this

we've all bought stuff in cash and the businesses are not reporting it so that's not new like in the u.s no not at all and in terms like the block by unchained as long as you're informed about the risk and you're willing to take it like hey do whatever you want with your sets they're your sets yeah at the end of the day um so let's let's take a step back here like how did you get into bitcoin in general like obviously you've been engaged in politics your whole life you were the president of your of your high school your senior year um is that what sort of drove you towards bitcoin or so yeah i've always been involved in politics but but no like the the and the fed and like political side of bitcoin like wasn't what drew me to it like what drew

me to it was my dad and i were always just like make money online guys like i just grew up you know going to conferences and like just trying out different stuff on the internet with him so you know just like i think it was when i made my first purchase on coinbase january 2015 and And like, I remember it was just to, it was one of the signup bonuses and it was just, you know, drop in my 50 bucks, watch it double. And I pulled out my, like my pulled out my initial investment. Cause I just saw it as a way I just like, I would sign up for free checking accounts just to flip the first a hundred bucks too.

Like, so it was just like trying out another app and trying to, you know, make money on the internet. That's how it started for me. And when was this? If you don't mind me asking. Yeah. January, 2015. um dude and i found out this this year this was crazy like my dad bought on gox and i never even

had like told me about it like and so because my dad has like fallen in and out of bitcoin um so because and now he cautions me like you know he's like it might not work out like be careful like whatever and i'm like i agree but there's like but but that's where then the whole political side comes in for me now and it's like but i really don't see any other option like i don't I don't want to live in a world where we get ripped off. I'm sorry. I don't like that doesn't work for me anymore. Like I took, like I took the red pill. I don't want to get ripped off anymore. I can't, I can't unsee it. So that's why I'm passionate about it. So when did you see it? Like how long did it take you? Um, this is interesting. Like to your point of like,

how, like just being unemployed, like, dude, I would work on these political campaigns and and i would have like months off at a time in between these political campaigns so i've had because it's very seasonal work like so i would have you know work for four or five months and i'd have to i'd be off for four or five months and so like sharon my wife like is at work and i'm just like at home watching youtube and watching listening podcasts like because number one that's the only school that works nowadays like is twitter and youtube to like learn how to do something so i just did like i watched youtube and read twitter and like just heard all of you talking about this it is the best i mean i've said this many times on this podcast

youtube is the best teacher these days even though it's getting pretty orwellian too they are just taking they're not they're curbing free speech but go full beauty on here they're a private company they can do whatever they want with their platform yeah it just dude the whole like attention is currency so just grab the attention wherever you can right now like leverage twitter leverage youtube leverage facebook leverage whatever you can do just grab the attention like your name like as activists like i i like like i'm like i like doing marketing consulting i like just coaching activists on just your name is is the product so just ever like ever all press is good press your name is the product don't be afraid to just

published stuff on the internet video written everything now again that's what we were talking about like you asked me if i learned anything at barstool and i really learned before i got to barstool like dave always drove that home to stoolies and people who wanted to write for barstool was like all right like just produce content every day like the best way to get a job at barstool is to create your own blog and make content every day prove that you can actually show up and produce good content and it is the hardest part of showing up every day and being consistent a lot of people want to just burst onto the scene and they think their ideas are are great and they may be great but if you can't follow that up with consistent production it's

it's not going to take you anywhere totally and so like i changed this a little bit about my mindset that made it easier for me to blog and you know make videos too was that i i this is weird i'm sure it works both ways for different kinds of people but as soon as i stopped trying to hold myself to some sort of schedule or promise the audience some sort of schedule it made it way easier for me and so and and granted like i don't have i i don't i don't have any sponsorships or like whatever or i don't i don't have a uh no one's depending on me to like show up but as soon as i just started seeing like my work on the internet and my website as a portfolio that i just wanted to be proud of and wanted to add to it add to it add to it and then

when a question would come up like now now when i get like the you we all have gotten the message you know from the friend that comes out of the woodwork that says hey man like so this bitcoin thing like dude i literally now just send them my bitcoin starter kit playlist from youtube like and i just say hey dude like really appreciate you asking man like i made this videos like playlist like would really appreciate you give me feedback and i almost like put it back on them to understand you know where do you want to start the conversation because like and that that has like just facilitated so many um better conversations yeah yeah i mean that's how the newsletter started it was just literally all those friends coming to me being like what about bitcoin

it got overwhelming i was like all right sign up for the newsletter you'll learn a little bit every day yeah and yeah it snowballs into this weird thing where i wind up talking to people i meet on twitter um and it's fun it's rewarding but it's not it's not easy to write every day and produce content every week no it's not and twitter twitter makes you like twitter makes you get addicted to writing like short sentences and getting the emotional feedback directly from it and so it's hard to go offline and then you spend you know an hour or whatever your process is to write a longer blog post and you know you don't get as many eyeballs on it so that's kind of of that can be depressing and it can be like so then you just sit in the constant you know

twitter game and i was dude i was thinking about this of like the um like the nakamoto institute guys like i never i never really like scrolled that site very much like it wasn't super you know influential to me but the fact that it's there and the fact that like people can now link back to it today and like the stuff is still relevant is amazing and so even though those guys they there was no emotional payoff in the moment of writing that still the random four hours that they took to write that on that day has paid huge dividends and so start to think about you're like my writing and videos has gotten easier for me as i start to think about it as like no i want the record like of me saying this on the internet for myself personally regardless

regardless of how many people like it today no i mean nakamoto institute for me personally was a huge influence and really helped me grasp bitcoin but pierre uh michael and yeah daniel even though daniel's a bit wayward these days uh wrote some pretty evergreen content that you can point to today from 2013 2014 and on it's like stands the test of time yeah dude and pierre pierre was so nice with his like open dms like so early like also and that's the thing that i'm trying to replicate even now is like you can message me like message me and ask me and like because because people answer questions for me and and i think we forget i think we forget how much we know we and and and we do get addicted to listening to you know the next podcast or the

next youtube video and it's like no dude like turn it off like turn it off for a minute and go share the information um because or or at least have open communication if someone wants to know yeah dms are open freaks if you have any questions i know i don't get to all of them i get to as many as possible um it is no it is rewarding too like and people sometimes people and i was like pierre a great example like i was shocked when he answered my dms like to come on the podcast he was the first guest on the podcast um i think we had met a bit met a bit that's a couple times but it was just like oh my god this this dude who i'm learning so much from responded to me yeah oh my god he's retweeting me he retweeted the newsletter so holy shit

and that's that's um it's it's great that's like the beauty of bitcoin i guess and bitcoiners specifically is that they believe in the power of bitcoin so much and they want to help as many people understand that as possible and that's the tip i'm on now as well is like i truly believe like you said this is an imperative technology moving forward like we need it if we're going to have any sense of freedom in the digital age and if that means getting in dms and helping walk people through resources and answering questions like it's got to be done yeah dude okay because i said this before we started recording too like getting getting in the trenches of the comments and the dms is the exact opposite of what the elite class does it's the exact opposite of the

way that we're treated by politicians like and and that's what's revolutionary about this too like i said i i'm the whole like is bitcoin a community thing like no bitcoin is open source software and it can be used in multiple different ways for multiple different people it'll be different things to different people it's in an open source software absolutely but freedom fighters and those on the side of freedom they are a community and that's my community and like and and when i talk to you and when i like listen to tales from the crypt that's who i feel like i'm hanging out with like i feel like the way that i imagine the founding fathers felt like inside those taverns talking about under their breath. Holy shit, dude, are you really serious?

You're not going to pay taxes? Dude, the tea tax? Are you really saying that that's messed up? Yeah, dude, I am. Like I'm openly saying that I'm inviting you to come have a beer with me and continue talking about it. So that's, that's what the DMS means to me. And that's what getting in the trenches in the comments and talking to people means to me. And because it's super makes me mad that the leaders of this country and the leaders of our counties and the leaders of our cities don't treat us like that no and like you said like they're too polished right and they're just taking the the talking points and from uh the higher up on the ladder and just regurgitating them and um they're not authentic at all and that's what i think drives me to the space and

bitcoiners and bitcoin twitter is because the authenticity uh not for everybody obviously there's some scammers and dirtbags and people who are talking out their ass but generally if you're able to filter through all that there is a lot of authenticity out there yeah yeah it's and we were talking like sorry for all the typos and the bent that sneak in there every once in a while it's just pure off the cough off the dome hit send as quick as possible because i need to get on to the next thing yeah and like you as soon as i stopped holding myself to like a 9 a.m deadline i was staying up to like 4 a.m writing them and i was like you know what this isn't this isn't possible for me at least um and i don't want to force anything because of a deadline

so now it's like it just gets out there whenever i try to get out there before noon or 1 p.m hopefully on the east coast but i don't hold myself to a strict like 9 a.m schedule anymore yeah dude absolutely like we're doing we're doing it live right now we're we're doing it live right now it's open source like the marketing department is open source the same way the code gets written open source that's that's what's cool to me about it do you think it's getting better over time Do you think the message is getting stronger? Yeah, I do. I really do.

I think because, like I told you, I did a presentation earlier today to a government affairs company talking to them about Bitcoin mining and just preaching the message, look, Bitcoin mining does not waste energy. It uses wasted energy. And just giving them the pitch and just saying, this is now changing economics of what energy producers are allowed to do because now they can do whatever they're normally doing or they can produce this this commodity and it's interruptible and you can switch back and forth like just spreading that message and the fact that dude the fact that i like gave this presentation to a

sophisticated audience and they didn't even question bitcoin dude they just immediately started talking about like an economics of like how a deal would actually happen um i think yeah Yeah. So it is happening. It's happening a little bit at a time. That's what's cool. Yeah. And you have people like Paul Tudor Jones coming out saying he's getting in it. Is it just the amount of time Bitcoin's been around? Do you think it's established itself? Yeah. I think saying 10 years is really helpful. Yeah. Saying 11 years and saying that you know it's been around is is really helpful and i think and i think just meeting

people meeting people where they're at like i like i love to talk about just the big like big picture and like oh it's eating the world over ending the fed like all this stuff but meeting where they're at and realizing like hey okay regardless of all that stuff of what i think about it if you have you know surplus energy behind the meter i can sell it now in a way i can monetize it now in a way that the current regulations don't like you to do it and you and all hold all the currency risk we can find investors now like i'll hold all the currency risk and just letting them know that like there's other people out in the world that are like making this bet and so they if you like yeah if you want the fiat end of the end of the you know agreement

that's fine but that's still one step towards them making that next pivot they're still now financially incentivized to like be a part of it yeah and it's it's crazy to think it's taken this long for the energy sector to sort of come around to this or begin to come around to it not everybody has um it's crazy to think of how many efficiencies this network creates now we're finding out secondary and tertiary effects like beyond the protocol itself uh and the people who interact with it like it's helping out industries that have massive problems that need to be solved and becoming more obvious that bitcoin can solve these problems it's really beautiful at the end of the day and it's almost too good to be true for some people like that it's like yeah yeah it's

gonna bitcoin fixes everything it's like well you actually get down to the details no maybe probably doesn't fix everything but it fixes a lot of things like fix the money fix the world i think that's a great great thing to meme into the world yeah dude fix the money fix the world yeah i started repeating that when you started saying it too like and and i guess i guess i shouldn't be so totally over optimistic because you're right like like this is funny like dude cernovich like i reply he like finally wrote me back on twitter yesterday and was like stop replying to everything i post with something about bitcoin and like and and i just thought that was funny like i screenshotted that and i was like dude but it's all connected like it's all connected you know

and I because I get in that zone. I'm like, dude, it is all connected or, or I replied to you and about, like Eric Weinstein, just tweeting out just all this stuff about how, you know, he has a podcast on YouTube with him and Peter Thiel talking about how the whole the whole world's in stagnation. And you know, nothing's working. And like science is stagnant, like all this stuff. And I'm like, dude, well, then have someone besides Vitalik on your podcast, then have a Bitcoiner on there that's telling you about how fix the money fix the world. Like I don't as some of these guys yeah i don't understand like how are you gonna tweet so much about stagnation and bureaucracy and all this stuff and you know bitcoin is a thing you know it's a thing why aren't you

thinking about it that's weird to me well again like i think most people think it's just too good to be true they're like oh fix the money fix the world like how but it's if you really dig into the problems of the world it's driven by inequality which is driven by monetary policy mainly today yeah it's it's hard for people to grasp that or they want to believe it's red team versus blue team it's the blue team fucked us over the red team fucked us over right it's like no they're both working together at the end of the assholes like right they are they're they're brown team is that what you get when you mix blue and red the swamp dude it's called the swamp for a reason um no okay on that exactly and this is what

bothers me about the kind of like gold bugs and like libertarians a little bit like where they say you know well i don't know there's there's some guy who was tweeting the other day and someone asked him you know like what do you you know what do you think about bitcoin and he's or do you own any bitcoin he's like no it's too speculative i don't consider it a currency yet and i just wrote him back and i was like why is that a reason not to own something i vote for people that are long shots all the time i donated the dollar to justin amash and i donated the dollar to andrew yang because i want us to you know break the two-party system i throw flyers out all the time for you guys to break the system you're telling me you can't go to cash app and

sign up for 10 bucks a month call it a political donation then like what are you doing why don't you own some like this is a thing it's been around for 11 years it's again it's too good to be true yeah and well and that's why i just started saying like okay it's a political donation then like i care i don't care what you think about it it's a political donation swaps yeah swap some fed dollars or some bitcoin like it's political it's a political donation that cuts out the politicians which are the worst part of the whole process yes no absolutely i made a video about that the other day i just said how like how often do we donate to politicians that go to sacramento go to dc and do the opposite of what we asked them to do all the time all the time and that money never comes

is back you don't even get a tax write-off for that money so dude and that's where that's where it's like oh like bitcoin's too complicated like no it's not too complicated go on cash app and buy it that's interesting coming from you because you've been pretty close to the beast you've participated in political campaigns you're part of the government in orange county aren't you yeah so i just yeah so i've worked on campaigns here in orange county for the past six years um yeah i like i worked for the trump campaign i was the southern california field director for him like during the primary here um i've worked for yeah different congressmen here and yeah like that's it truly dude like this last year of being involved with like the oc bitcoin network guys

and like this last 58 days of being locked down have like finally kind of just unlocked my brain to like it like red team versus blue team does not work it just does not work and that has like just fueled my like circular interest in bitcoin even farther and and that's why dude it's but but but i do think as an audience i can still talk to you like i don't want to say it's look if all bitcoiners are conservatives like it doesn't matter that's totally fine like but like yeah like i got elected to the orange county republican party central committee and now i can say now like when i you know tweet to warren davidson or tweet to tyler lindholm in wyoming or like some of these guys that are like are elected and are you know fighting the good fight from where they're seated

in the way that they're supposed to i'm trying to meet them where they're at also of like look like i i am in this game too like i am elected and i appreciate what you're doing as much as i talk about you know like we have to use bitcoin to like defund the bureaucracy like i appreciate where you're seated trying to um you know change the system also and so I was I was really fired up I was really fired up that Nick Carter got his uh got an article published at the American Mind which is the blog post for the Claremont Institute which is a big I don't know if it's a it's a think tank or a political action committee like here in California like they they partner sometimes with the other political action committee that I worked for here and so I do think like we do need

to turn some of these more traditional free market guys onto you know like bitcoin does work bitcoin is gonna work in the way that gold can't and gold didn't because it's opt-in 24 7 365 and just take them through the whole thing meet them where they're at bitcoin is a tool for freedom bitcoin is a political donation i don't care if you think we can actually end the fed or not in the fed doesn't matter like get on board like get off zero get on port i think more people are opening up to it man especially with these lockdowns you get their trump bucks i mean the amount of texts my parents told me last night they came down to visit we had dinner and they told me they took their trump bucks and bought bitcoin on the cash app with it i was very proud

to my little brother both both my little brothers inside the last 60 days have bought bitcoin for the first time and my dad has re-gotten into it and and i'm just thankful for that yeah and as soon as you buy it you like you start asking questions my sister um she took her trump bucks and took a portion of that and bought bitcoin and then like two weeks later she's like what's the halving what's going on with the halving here is my money gonna get cut in half i was like no but i'm very happy you're asking this question yeah dude and the whole like when people started saying quantitative hardening versus quantitative easing i'm like that's a very i i love i i do love when the just kind of um i don't know proper language or whatever it's it almost feels like a reverse

meme to me like a suit like a meme in a suit like like there's some of these sayings like that's i i equate it also to the whole like digital flare mitigation like when guys started saying that i was just like that's so awesome like digital pipelines baby yeah yeah i mean bitcoiners are good memers that's like and the the small repetitive uh memes that can sort of just bake into people's head like the having the having alone like just the the word the having what the having what the fuck like did you see like the google trends on that over the last week it went exponential yeah um and and again like when people shut down they're like what the fuck what the fuck's going on like you have neil kashkari on 60 minutes fed as unlimited money

and print as much cash as we need i have a picture with him dude neil kashkari ran for governor of california in 2014 and and so why why was i helping him run for governor in 2014 dude why was i not thinking about bitcoin what was i doing what did you see in him yeah i don't know i have no i don't know dude and that's part of the problem and that's part of why like okay so that's why i'm going to sit here like on a public podcast and I'm going to say this at meetings coming up like I have a problem with the Republican Party in California choosing guys like that why why are we choosing a guy that's going to go on to be a central money printer and rip off poor people because that's what he's doing you're going to print money and it's going to find its way into

the one percent and the Cantillon effect is going to continue happening that doesn't make any sense and that doesn't work for me anymore and I'm going to be elected and sit here at your meeting and keep bringing it up thank you for doing that do you i'm a strong believer in that like the system is so far gone there's no chance in changing it from within like it's not going to happen it's all wishful thinking like you see the the act that they just passed that's going to get it's not even act it's a clause that's going to get added to the patriot act when they renew it in a couple days here where the fbi has access to all of our web browsing history yeah and like 10 democrats who are supposed to be for the little man voted for it bernie bernie is like

literally one vote away from not getting passed and bernie sanders didn't vote like that dude doesn't give a fuck about anybody yeah dude i don't know i don't know what the solution is to like the big picture like that stuff i don't this is again where it's like i have i have my libertarian like loudmouth answer to that but i'm like trying to come up with new information and new ways of like just giving us more ammo in our in our you know mental arsenal and so that's that's this it's like i so so i've been trying to do more thinking on just how bitcoin continues just weave itself into the thing and just break it apart like at the seams rather than because you got like you've

had guys that come on here and say like we don't want it to burn down and you're right we don't want it to burn down. I'm not anti something. I'm for Bitcoin. I'm for freedom. I'm not advocating burning it up. I am advocating for if people want to live in a Bitcoin circular economy, outside of taxes that don't pay them back, I think they should legally be allowed to do that. And if that requires you know, one of us taking a case, weaving through the thing and paying it and paying the lawyers paying the lawyers and

going up to the supreme court and saying hey legitimately this does not work for me anymore and making our case as american citizens that like this does not work for me anymore i don't want to work under this system i i think like whether that will work or not work it will create conversations and so looking at ways like that or another angle another angle is like this whole mining thing dude i've been so like because i know these government affairs people i've been trying to pitch them on the idea of Bitcoin mining so that we can take it to a municipal audience, because here in California, there's a ton of renewable, you know, solar panels, wind, wind farms, that were built with public dollars, and somehow governed by, you know, a city or school

district or whatever, we need to tell them that, bring the modules, bring the miners to them and increase, you know, because everyone's getting their belt squeezed right now. Everyone's getting their belt squeezed, because tax revenue is down. And this whole thing is like jacked everyone up. So we can seize the day and say, we have a way for you to monetize existing resources that are already here in a way that the current regulations don't let you sell your electricity. So we come teach them all about that. And then what happens? They sign the agreement and they'll most likely sign the agreement in fiat. And so we'll just sell the electricity that they weren't able to sell to miners. But dude, we're one step away then from getting Bitcoin onto the balance sheet of a public

city or of a public school district and that's the other power of like i i am kind of this like on both sides of the fence thing on like being elected because that's where it's like no like what if i i want to run for a community college district or a school district that has solar panels and tell them that like we should be doing this or if you're and that's like that's crazy to me that's how you we just continue to weave this thing and normalize this thing into the system No, I agree with that. And I like the localized nature of that starting at the grassroots at the school district, at the county level, instead of going straight to the fed and being like, you should put Bitcoin on your balance sheet, which doesn't make any sense to me,

but just integrate it with communities, right? Like strong towns. Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. Like strong towns, like episode you did. And it, it shows like, it really is just like parks and rec dude. Like, and people that watch parks right it truly is like that like you don't have to dude i got elected with 1800 bucks and granted like it's just on central committee like but i now have a vote on the different kinds of city council people to get endorsed the different kind of county supervisors that get endorsed like so you can start at the bottom and get elected for not that much money and not that many votes um and it just helps you it helps you have a voice and it helps you normalize bitcoin

to just more people so are we getting until you can change the system through the system now yeah no definitely and i think it you just have to start local like i don't think right i don't think we're going to change anything in dc it's too far gone well and what's frustrating what's frustrating is that chain change candidates don't stay change candidates like when andrew yang endorsed biden why like that's a super bummer dude or when bernie endorsed biden why like why go start a podcast like go start a lobbying company go start anything go be an interesting person like don't and don't give up like that's that's what's annoying and that's what's annoying of like how or when when massey like when massey stood up and was like

hey guys like i really think we should take the i think we should count the votes on this thing and then everyone like hated him but we we realize like he's asking people to do their jobs yeah yeah and so i think what's a bummer it's so i guess it shows it shows that you can use the system to grab attention i guess that i guess that's what it is like don't don't run for congress thinking you're gonna like change the world because most likely you're gonna get eaten by the system but if you run for a small thing and win and learn how to book yourself on podcasts learn how to use youtube learn how to use instagram stories then you have a reason like you have a reason for local radio booking you and then you go on and you talk about bitcoin like that's that's

what's exciting for me and that that's what i love about just hanging out with everyone on twitter every day is because everyone is just finding different ways to grab influence and grab attention i agree um are we too full of ourselves on twitter though are bitcoiners too full of ourselves i maybe yeah sometimes some i wouldn't phrase like that i would phrase it that and i hate the whole echo chamber thing too because i think like i don't think it's bad to have an echo chamber i think you come in talk with people but then yeah i do think you have to modify your message and you have to be an approachable radical to other people and you have to find out what their incentive is and make bitcoin fit into their incentive and so no i it's like a

double-edged sword it's like the dude the the being full of ourselves is the confidence that like gives us like we're confident i mean the cards we have the cards we have the cards in the the giant poker game like we do there's no like so we're gonna call we're gonna call and we're gonna raise because we have it and so i don't know i don't think we're overconfident i think sometimes we just move too fast for other people and don't don't freeze it in the way that they need it phrased no i agree i agree always got to check yourself though make sure you're not crazy um no that's what i try to do with this podcast would be like the approachable bitcoiner it's like the gold bugs and the skeptics um hear them out hear their side of the story

yeah but also sometimes i get i get flack for not pushing back hard enough but again trying to meet somebody where they are at their point of their journey yeah um is important and this is something we learned via our wives uh and it's something we should probably talk about is like being a married bitcoiner and a bitcoiner with parents who are worried about you because of the intensity of the freedom fight and i was telling you before or we were talking about the the newsletter i or the week of newsletters a few weeks ago i was like really angry about what's going on in the world particularly like during the lockdown and with the encroachment on civil liberties and then that was compounded by the the sociopaths at harvard

who want to ban homeschooling and, uh, try to label kids as property of the state. My mom, my mom reached out. She was worried about me. Um, the, the intensity, uh, of, of the letters that week really, really shown through. Um, and, but it all to clear the air came from a, an area of like intense, I thought intense injustice and, and again, like evil things happening, uh, sort behind the scenes that could have profound impacts on the life of my child yeah in my future yeah no dude i've i've got those phone calls my wife has that conversation with me you know at least every other month like shout out to her like i really appreciate sharon like keeping me grounded um like follow her on twitter sharon z um she she does she does a great job of keeping me grounded

and to your point of yeah just like being full of ourselves and being confident in the message like and being passionate about the message no i got those same phone calls from my parents saying like you know like why like you know why are you so angry about this i mean and it really is just like because because i because i don't feel free dude i don't feel free it feels like we have permissions it doesn't feel like we have rights like i like break down what has happened like The, the government said that you are not allowed to take the key to a building that you pay rent on or own, turn the key, go inside and engage in commerce for money. They made engaging in commerce illegal.

That like, dude, what, what that, that is weird. That is weird. And I'm not going to sit around and not say that that's weird. And I'm sorry that I've like said that, you know, loud and with some cuss words and with whatever, but that's still what's happening. And then bring it to Bitcoin. Like the Cantillon effect is real. The people at the top get the money first and get the benefit.

And then the people at the bottom suffer. And I'm tired. i'm like i'm tired of this being a conservative talking point or a liberal talking point like this is what's happening the federal reserve is increasing wealth inequality and i'm gonna keep saying that i am too i am too but it's always like people look at you like you're crazy it's like what the fuck are you talking about man just sit down shut up get back in your pod yeah all this is only temporary it will pass everything is always temporary yeah like the patriot act which is

getting uh renewed in a few days yeah yeah um but no but then like yeah and luckily my wife supports what i do and what i have been doing for quite some time but it did take a while to get there and talking about like approaching the pitch like there were times and like when we were still long distance i was a senior at college she was living here in new york and she would fly to chicago and sometimes i'd ruin like one of the three days that she'd be in town because we'd be at brunch i'd be like global monetary system's in trouble like bitcoin's the only way like we're fucked and um like those those types of pitches are not advantageous to somebody uh in my wife's position maybe to some other people but yeah i had to learn that lesson

as well and it is hard because you're so passionate about it and like you like you said before we hit record too like why do we have access to this asymmetric information like it feels like we're plebs like having this information feels like a superpower sometimes yeah sure and yeah sharon's on board with the mission too like i'm really thankful like really thankful and something that has helped us is coming at it from the budgeting like side of it and almost like treating treating bitcoin as an asset like it can't be bitcoin cannot like if you're in a committed relationship it can't just be this like side thing that you're like squirreling away you know 50 bucks 100 bucks like on this thing because the other partner just sees it like leaving the accounts and that really

is something that i overcame of like dude like we have to get this stuff like on sharon's phone like it needs to be on her phone it needs to be in her face it needs to be like so hard we are like google um our little google pod morning routine now like before it plays us our you know news podcast it like tells us the price of bitcoin and i'm like we you have to work it into what you're doing and you i i do think that like stacking stats as a couple like is infinitely more fun than like stacking stats as you know an individual i agree i agree um yeah man it's it's a lot it's it is like a heavy conversation i have especially if um not a heavy conversation but like a process of a conversation of a of a understanding at

least it was for me um luckily my wife is she's orange pilled she gets it and she's stacking sets herself as well um but i feel for you freaks out there who who feel um uncomfortable bringing it up or or that you bring it up too much and you definitely do have to um temper the amount that you talk about it you gotta you gotta talk about other things as well but you also gotta fight the good fight and it's trying to balance those two yeah i do too i feel like we need we need more stuff for bitcoin couples like and and like here i'm gonna say something like maybe comfort like we and we need more girls like and i'm not saying that and i'm not controversial i'm not saying that as like weird like quotas and like dumb like all this stuff like that's

not what i'm talking about i'm talking about like literally like we just need more perspectives and when I say we, again, to like cypherpunks, I'm not talking about Bitcoin community, I'm talking like freedom fighting community, like the freedom fighting people that are trying to use this software and change their own personal prison and change the wider society prison. Like and to do that, we need more people communicating as as like, just, you know, like adult couples going into life saying like this is a real asset that we are using we use this software and i love i love the stories of like people that you know pay their kids allowance and stuff like on lightning like that or how pierre like did his little webinar the other day for kids and like teaching

parents how to teach kids to save like dude that that is the most subversive thing you could do in the entire world right now like swapping fed dollars for bitcoin is the number one political protests you can make in the world right now teaching your kids about hard money and how to save that will rip the control like rip apart the people that are trying to control us right and it's it's due time right i grew up in an era like i was a 90s baby and i remember like growing up like as soon as we got our allowance like i i worked pretty much every summer since I was 12 and my parents did push me to save but I was not always the best saver I always wanted the latest jersey the latest pair of shoes latest video game

and the concept of money was never like and I got paid in cash usually I usually worked all cash jobs so getting introduced to money as a 12 year old getting paid in cash like every day that you worked was like a weird way to get introduced to money and probably led to some bad spending habits earlier in my life but um i think more education around the concept of money and hard money particularly is like you said very subversive if you can get that at an early age like i i just had the concept of saving money and making money not really the concept of money what it is or what it's supposed to fulfill yeah yeah and that's why i hope see so okay so that's how i feel like i feel bad for like Bitcoiners aren't able to do it as a couple. And then on the other side, I feel bad

for people that are still stuck in kind of these like just personal finance courses that aren't hitting the root of the problem. Like you can learn how to get out of credit card debt and you can learn how to, you know, max out your 401k match first and then do this next and do it and do all that stuff, do all that stuff. It's all great advice. It's all great advice, but it doesn't hit the core of the problem you're still trapped you're still building your whole thing on quicksand and and that's the other thing too of like um trying to create that sense of urgency for the like personal finance community that is gives largely good advice but it's like is it y'all talk because i'll talk to some people and they'll be like you know well i'll have to you know i'll

have to ask my financial advisor about it i'm like you have to ask your financial you have to ask your financial advisor if you can download an app and spend ten dollars like that doesn't make any sense and it just shows like the the mental allocation a lot of people give to the financial industry it's like yeah you don't want to learn how to protect your money yourself yeah does that person does your financial advisor have aligned incentives either yeah um are they chasing fees are they chasing fees most likely and and they've just taught you like they've just somehow they just got it in their head that it's too complicated oh well i just i don't really understand economics like i don't understand economic i don't i don't understand economics

either i studied economics but as soon as the math got too hard i switched to business admin like that's so it's hard economic like economics in air quotes the way that like the world does it is hard and doesn't make any sense so like stop like stop following that or believing that it's too complicated like top-down control is bad like don't let them tell you what the answer is exactly well that's why economics is hard to understand because it's all top-down control with models like the laugher curve like the economics that we learned in college that's what i studied as well uh was hard because it's so fucking convoluted you're you're trying to again like you said top down uh control and model everything out when it's just

damn near impossible yeah i remember being dude i remember being in class one day and i think it was like a it was some like it was like some microfinance about like overseas investors or something like it was kind of from like a sociological perspective you know helping out entrepreneurs so it was cool but then i did i don't know why this sticks to me but one day the professor was talking about how he had enough cash to buy a car like full but because they were offering you know 1.2 percent interest why not just take that because it's easy money like and i i was just like that's just so funny that it's like that pervasive in the thing of yeah it is it is free like it is free the fact that they're just going to hand out free money yeah why not

just like take advantage of it um but how that doesn't spark interest in anyone to like think about more in inside an academic institution albeit not even just some random conversation is like funny yeah they're not incentivized to incentives run the world freaks um and thinking of a girl i actually had a comment it's good to see michelle fan get into it and i think she's a very good inspiration for a lot of women out there so and i think that's a good girl to have on our team totally totally hopefully she talks more about it on youtube yeah i started following her on youtube when those tweets were up michelle if you're following this podcast you have an open invite if you ever want to come on talk about your journey to bitcoin um or even better just

bring marty onto your youtube we gotta get marty on the youtube one that would be dope that would be dope i'm up to that michelle um one thing i want to talk about we got to wrap it up here soon i got to get to dinner but before that um i'm going to sort of throw this on you i don't know if you're comfortable to talk about it but um you're very religious and it's during a time when it's not easy to be very religious it gets mocked a lot what's that like so so i'm i kind of viewed this like religious the way that people say like crypto like and so what i like to say is like dude i'm a jesus follower like and so i don't know if you've heard that but like i'm a jesus follower and i see jesus like as the bitcoin and as like religion as you know the crypto um and

like because he's he's the only one like in my entire life that has like helped me not listen to like the negative voice inside my head and so like when i say jesus gives me freedom but that's what i mean like like believing in him gives me freedom because i believe that humans like i'm so i had this conversation with bitcoin or the other day like are humans inherently good or bad and like i say bad like i think humans are inherently bad but the reason why i can say that with optimism is because i believe god is inherently good i don't believe god causes bad things to happened to you like i believe god loves you like if you're listening to this like i believe god loves you and that's why i can live in a world driven by selfish incentives and be an optimist

is like for that reason and so i see i i see there's a lot of continuity in my life of like you know jesus creates freedom bitcoin creates freedom guns create freedom free speech creates freedom and so in that sense like i see you know my kind of mental model and the way that i operate through life is very consistent you know it's i applaud you for for not being uh not being afraid to voice that opinion where a lot of people are these days um in a world that's sort of losing jesus not religion it's losing jesus um but i did like that i don't know if you did that on easter i am i grew up catholic and i believe jesus uh has a very good message i'm not um i'm not as i'm a bad catholic i'm a bad jesus follower but i did like the uh the story you read i think it

might have been on easter about jesus sacrificing for the individual like he will go find in the parable about the sheep and the one on the mountain yeah yeah dude god like in this world of like crowds over individuals like god does not do crowd math like god loves you as an individual God created you as the individual and he would risk everything. He already did. He risked everything for you. So he's not doing that. Like, to be honest, like I've been very frustrated with the reaction that the church in the United States has had like to this shutdown because I just don't, again, whether it's, there's different levels of like whether it's serious or not serious and it is serious, but I don't think we should just like shut down churches that easily i think that's really dangerous and so that bothered me and that and that triggered me to like when i when i read that passage about you know jesus leaving the 99 sheep in the open country to go find one sheep that's what i think about i think about this time and how god's not doing crab mouth he loves you as an individual yeah i think it's a very strong

message too um you can change the world and you are important you and you can that's why we bitcoin too because it enables individuality on a level that does not exist in the current financial system totally dude and my faith like i see i see my faith in in everything it doesn't it doesn't and and i don't think it's anti look i don't think believing jesus is anti-science i don't think believing jesus is anti-bitcoin like i was just going to make this analogy to what you just said of yeah we're individuals like if you read zero to one by peter teal like you are not a lottery ticket your idea is not a lottery ticket if you're an investor you're not just picking random things like good investors you have a literal thesis of what you

think is around the corner like and then you hammer it you hate and that's how i feel about bitcoin dude like i've never had this much asymmetric information about anything in my whole entire life and so i'm gonna hammer this with every spare dollar that i have and every ounce of like personal credibility that i have i'm gonna hammer this thing because it's the only opportunity i've ever had this much asymmetric information on i feel the same way let's keep hammering let's keep fighting the good fight brian thank you so much it's been an incredible hour where can we find out more about you what you're working on how can we help the cause yeah so go to surplus bitcoin.com and go to brianherrington.org and yeah really appreciate it guys really

appreciate all you freaks thankful for you yeah and i didn't realize this until a couple weeks you're brain harrington on on twitter brain harrington yep brain harrington across all social okay well i hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon i'm gonna go enjoy some dinner do it thank you so much peace and peace and love freaks